Brrrrrrrr

Day 1
0649
5 degrees F
ORD

I'm so cold, Gunny... so cold...

Here I sit at O'Hare International airport, or ORD as it's known in the vernacular. I'm at gate K11 before anyone, crazy-early. All those rituals about coming to the airport hours early, in case there's a problem with boarding... I follow those like a religion. Of course it takes me 5 minutes total to get my boarding pass from the e-ticket kiosk, pass through security, and pick up a McD's breakfast #4 ( sausage biscuit, with egg, and a bottled water. Total cost: 6.60 ). But of course I know that if I'd shown up five minutes before my flight was supposed to board, there would have been all manner of freakish delays and problems; Air Marshals shooting, al Queda plotting, and worst of all, flight cancellations.

Can't have that, can we? So I pre-paid my debt to karma, showed up for what I knew would likely be empty hours early, and consequently I have time to type this out. I was even lucky enough to find an outlet, so I am not typing this and frittering away precious power. I'm sure it will be a day or so before I get to post this, but note the time up top. “Day 1” is December 19^th, and there should be 21 days altogether on this trip.

I have a very loose idea of my itinerary. As far as today goes, after a 10 hour flight I get to Honolulu. With uncharacteristic foresight I scheduled my interisland ( Oahu – where Honolulu is, to Kauai ) flight a few hours later then my arrival, just in case. Catching an interisland is much more like catching a bus then a plane; the flight is typically about a half an hour, and they leave fairly regularly. You'd think that this would mean they'd have all the kinks worked out of the system, doing it all day every day for so long... but the interisland flight system of the Hawaiian islands can accurately be described as “kinky”.

Or full of kinks, rather.

So. 10 hours to Oahu, a 2 hour sit at HNL, then an Hawaiian Airlines flight to Kauai, depositing me at Kauai Regional Airport ( KHL ) at about 1730 local time.

I had my buddy Chris drop me off this morning, after spending an almost-adventure-filled evening at his place. I said goodbye to my mom and my dog Sunday, and camped out in scenic Justice IL waiting for this morning. Chris and I racked out at about 2330, me in Andy's bedroom and curled up with his wubbie ( this is a kid's blanket, if you're curious ). After tossing and turning for about 45 minutes, unable to sleep, I'm ripped from whatever calm state I was drifting into by the piercing cry of Chris' cellphone, in the adjacent bedroom. I make out the occasional words and after a brief call find out that our buddy Hemp ( Chris Hemphill, D – Justice ) is stranded at Soldier Field with car trouble. He'd called about a problem with the lock on his spare tire, but the situation quickly degenerated. So with only cursory discussion Chris and I were up out of bed, dressed, and heading towards Chicago.

Our rescue effort was comical. In a genius move of mine meant to streamline my trip to O'Hare, I had not brought a jacket to Chris' house. I certainly don't need a winter coat in Hawaii, and I sure as shit had no room to pack or carry such a coat, so I figured the heck with it. What on God's Green Earth would I need a winter jacket for from the hours of 2300 to 0530 before I went to Hawaii?

Isn't' life funny? Like an episode of Family Guy, life was showing me just how funny it could be. Ha! Funny! Laugh Now!

~sighs~

So there we are, on our way in the middle of the night to rescue Hemp. Me with no winter coat, but the fires of righteousness and altruism burning in my heart. We stopped for a quick bite to eat at White Hen ( a stopover that took 20 minutes. Thank Goodness Hemp wasn't injured and waiting for extraction in a hot LZ ). We were even more prepared because out of whole cloth Chris produced two skimasks; the exact style worn by the SAS, Delta members and various Swat teams throughout the US. We looked like poorly-dressed ninjas.

Of course the masks came off soon after we had our silly little sophomoric laugh, and as we hurdled towards Chicago Hemp called us and let us know that he was in fact being towed, and would not be needing our particularly slow brand of rescue. We told him that we had already bought him Hot Chocolate and a tasty White Hen sandwich ( they really are quite good ), and that he needed to call us to hang out when he got close.

This seemed like a good idea at the time, but at 0230, when Chris' evil phone again ripped my astral form away from whatever peace it'd managed to find and dragged it kicking and screaming back into my body, i was very very glad when Chris stumbled out the door to meet Hemp without bothering to ask me if I wanted to go. Chris and I seem to be in tune, that way. And sleep was fragile and precious last night.

Well Pete, why not just sleep on the plane?

Here's a bit of Pete trivia for you. It is physically impossible for me to sleep in the seated position. I have no idea why this is. I have slept standing at the position of attention. I have slept laying down in the bed of a pick-up truck in the full light of day, as it was driving down a country road. I cannot for whatever reason bring myself to sleep in a perfectly quiet, cozy-though-seated position. Just out of college ( undergrad ) Giselle and I ( pre-marriage and pre-pre-divorce ) had to take a trip to Florida to pick up a car ( family stuff ). We thought it would be a nice change to take a train. The trip took about 24 hours altogether, and by about 0200 I was curled up in the footspace of our seating in a tight ball, stealing a few precious hours of half-sleep and feeling like a refugee while Giselle slept soundly like a normal human being in her cozy Amtrak seating. Also, one of the times I'd gone to Hawaii I was working midnights;I'd been up all day before, worked all night, and then caught my 10 hour slight to HNL. Still no sleep for Pete. I spent the long-ass trip in the locked and upright position, experiencing reality in a quasi-state reserved for Shamans and acid trippers. I conversed with my spirit totem, saw sound and heard colors the whole way. So yea... I have yet to meet the physical conditions that must be present for my body to surrender to sleep in the seated position.

Fascinating, eh?

Chris dropped me off this am at ORD with me wearing cargo shorts, a tshirt, a blue ( open ) oxford button-down, sandals, and a smile. The fires of righteousness and altruism warming my heart and my body as I waved to him and hopped like a cartoon character for the nearest door, and my flight outta this goddamned cold place.

More soon. It's an hour before boarding, and I think I'm going to have to relent and give up my sweet-seating here at gate K11, while I seek a potty. Hmmmmmm. If only you were here, you could save the seats.